Katamari Damacy is a strange, cheerful game about rolling up stuff. All kinds of stuff. Cows, crabs, whole cities. It’s fun. Now, Katamari Damacy is rolling into the NYC Museum of Modern art as part of an exhibition called Century of the Child: Growing by Design. This exhibition is focused on something that’s been rather unique in history, designing things expressly for children and childhood. Until recent times, children were treated mostly as small adults, and little consideration was given to their unique needs. Nowadays, games like Katamari Damacy can engage kids on their own level, while still being great fun for us ancient coffin-dodgers. Player Attack has the story.
Video games and their characters have been showing up museums on the regular of late, which is a good thing. Games can be culture, they can create shared experiences and understandings. It’s only right that video gaming be celebrated for the art and the cultural expression that it is.